i cut his hair myself one night
by dance-at-bougival
Summary: Thor brings his brother home in the summer. Post-Avengers; Loki's punishment.


Thor brings his brother home in the summer. Asgard's skies are teeming with a hundred million new stars, a thousand colours tracing the branches of Yggdrasil, and on the bridge, nobles assemble. On the bridge, the golden prince lands with a great rush of wind beneath his feet, and his brother clasped tight in one hand.

She is still and unmoving as Loki straightens, his hands held together by metal cuffs. His fingers are thin, extending from the black leather of his sleeves, and she can trace the length of those hands, see where his hands curve up, around, into his fine-boned wrists. Sif turns her face from him, resolutely, and looks on straight ahead, does not flinch when he rips himself out of his brother's grasp, when he stalks past her like a prince, still, and not a traitor, sullied in name and face and everything of note.

She does not breathe, not until he is gone. She bites her lip when she sees Thor's fingers splay at his side, as if he wishes to reach out. She averts her gaze when his hand clenches into a fist.

There are some things that even she cannot see.

* * *

(There is a story in Midgard, written in gold scrolls and thin pages alike; he had seen it on a shelf, red leather and small print inside. There is a story in Midgard—

One betrayer out of twelve. One false, out of all those who are true. One who made made lies his livelihood, who had sat on the side of his saviour, and kissed him on the cheek; planted it as precise and sharp as a knife through the heart.

His brother's hand is hard against his back, escorting him down the golden hall of the palace. On all sides, he sees familiar faces, lips curving inwards into sneers, hands clasped just so to show the correct amount of deference, though no man bows. His fingers twitch, curving over one another, and his teeth gnash inside the cask of silver over his mouth.

_I know you not._

He is forced on to his knees at the base of the steps, his brother stepping backwards, and if he could, he would have laughed at the guards on either side of him. He has power enough in his little finger to kill them all before they can breathe—he has power enough, won with blood, won with fear, won with a fall that falls for centuries, to fell them as easily as if they were ants. He feels it coiling within him, in his core, and bites his tongue.

The Allfather stands up on high, and he forces himself to look up: _I am not weak. I am Loki, of Asgard. I am worthy. I am your s—_)

* * *

The Allfather stands up on high, and Sif forces herself to look straight ahead.

"You have betrayed the express commands of your king." Comes the judgement, and her teeth grind in her mouth. "You have committed grievous crimes, of which there are many. You have led the declared enemies of Asgard into the heart of the city. You have threatened the safety of Midgard, and consequently of the entirety of the Nine Realms, whose security is our sworn duty to keep."

When the sentence falls, Sif closes her eyes.

_He has a line of small scars, above his top lip, _she thinks. _You've already robbed him once._

* * *

(When the sentence falls, Thor lets out a sound; strangled, torn from his throat like a tendon from living flesh, and starts forward.

No, is his first thought. No, you cannot do that to me. You cannot. I would rather die—

Anything. Anything else, anything else but that—

He holds himself still, and when the mage nears he does not so much as breathe. _I will not cringe for you,_ he thinks. _I will not shake for you. I will not scream for you. You will have nothing from me._

When it begins to pull at him, when it starts to unravel him, pick at him, finding the stray ends of his core and tugging, relentlessly, one by one by one by one, he does not scream. There are a thousand nails clawing against his skin, tearing the magic out of every cell, but he will not scream, he shall not scream, he is Aesir and he is an Odinson and he does not scream—)

* * *

Thor is on his knees next to his brother, and Sif's nails are biting into her palm. Loki's shoulders are shaking, his entire body racking with the shock of it, his spine trembling, his hands clenched into claws, and the hall rings with the deafening silence of a thousand halted breaths.

When it is over, Loki is hunched forward, his shoulders small and trembling and bowed beneath some unimaginable weight. He is clenched into himself, the lines of his face; so thin, so cornered, drawn into taut planes. Dark lashes, like the spreading points of a dying star, spill over his cheekbones—too sharp, rendering him a skull.

If she stills, if she pauses to listen, she thinks she can hear screams inside his mask.

* * *

(When he comes to, when he is aware once again of his fingers, of his hands, of the muscles stretched tight from pain in his thighs, he is breathing into the gold strands of Thor's hair.

_There is a story in Midgard._

He tears himself away from his brother with a muffled cry of rage; his humiliation is laid bare, for all to see and laugh at. He is open, he is exposed, and all of them can see into the pores of Loki Silvertongue and know what is beneath.

_There is a story in Midgard._

He pushes Thor away futilely, his limbs weak and soft, and he gasps at the exertion, and thinks—_I know you not._

His brother's hands close around his shoulders as he pitches forward, firm and close, and Thor is whispering into his ear, nonsense, nonsense, ridiculous, overblown fool of a king—

_I know you not_, he thinks, and forces himself, stumbling, to stand.)

* * *

She watches Loki turn from Thor, and stride, falling slightly, stumbling, amongst his guards, down the hall.

She looks down at her hand, the one she uses to clutch her glaive, the one she uses to slay her foes. She shudders.


End file.
